This study is a comparative analysis of competitive commercial agriculture in seven
countries, namely Brazil, Thailand, Mozambique, Zambia and Nigeria. The focus is for
sub-saharian African countries so that policies and future investment in such countries can
be designed. In such an attempt, a backward look into regions with similar bio-physical
constraints like the Northeast of Thailand and the cerrado region in Brazil. These sets of
projects is called CCAA for short. Much of the research for Thailand is mostly drawn
from literature review although for the value chain methodology, a combination of existing
studies and collection of primary data was done. The analysis of value chain followed a
set of uniform templates developed for this study by the World Bank in order to ensure
comparability. What happened in Thailand and Brazil in the last four decades can be
analysed and lessons can be drawn from such studies. The authors recognize several
limitations of this study. While there are many experts on the Northeast Thailand, we have
attempted this study hoping that it can positively contribute the different points of views
and methodologies. The comparative nature of this study will be very useful and will
further the thoughts and debates on competitive commercial agriculture for many parts of
the world including the development in the Northeast Thailand itself. Both positive and
negative impacts can happen and it is in this context that we compile this study.